Chapter Text
“It is a wonder anyone takes you seriously at all,” says the other Javert, eventually, after a good ten minutes of silent staring, “you look like a damned puppy dog.”
They are both very drunk. It is not often one meets one’s counterpart from another world.
“You will take that back,” says Javert. He bangs his glass unsteadily on the bar. There is no one else around except the innkeeper, stone-faced and deaf to everything but calls for more drinks, and another couple of drunks drooling on the tables in the corners. They have been drinking for a very long time.
“Very well,” says the other Javert, and smiles benevolently at him. “You do not look like a puppy dog. Not in the slightest.” And when Javert’s hackles begin to settle, he adds, “I would say you look significantly more like a stuffed toy. Perhaps a bear cub. You would not be out of place on the bed of a small child.”
Javert sputters in indignation. “Well – you – you would not look out of place in the public gardens,” he retorts, wavering on his seat. “Do not cast stones, Monsieur Gorilla. Those sideburns are in danger of eating your face.”
“At least I have sideburns,” the gorilla in question replies, “not some – scruffy damn –”
He lapses into silence, eyes boring into the empty glass before him. Javert feels a little thrill of triumph, and then feels stupid for being excited over such a shallow victory.
“Innkeeper!” the other Javert barks at last, in his harsh baritone. “More wine!”
“For me, too,” Javert adds, waving a hand.
The wine arrives. They drink. They are quiet for a time.
Then, “I am sorry for trying to arrest you,” the other Javert says.
Javert shrugs. “I am sorry for trying to punch you in the face.”
“If I may tell the truth, though,” the other Javert says, “I am not sorry for ducking. Or for punching you back.”
Javert is beginning to feel the urgency of finding something else to call the taller, sideburned, longer-haired apparition before him. Calling him “Javert”, even with “the other” tacked before it, already sounds wrong even in his head, however correct it may be. Sideburns, he thinks, will be very appropriate. Or Lucifer, probably. Being one’s own companion is a tolerable state of affairs only when the phrase is figurative rather than literal. He drinks.
He studies Sideburns. It is easier when he calls him Sideburns. It is less bizarre than if he were to associate this man with his own name. If he had not known better, he would have dismissed the strange similarities between them as a matter of probability. Certainly there are many men on this earth with the same pale eyes and the same furrows that run from nose to cheek and the same lines between their eyebrows, who are also policemen and of the same age and wearing the same uniform. But their voices are dissimilar, and the height and the hairstyle and the sideburns and of course common bloody sense were enough that Javert did not recognize Sideburns for what he was immediately, had assumed the man was just another officer. Then someone had called out “Inspector Javert!” and – well, that was all many hours ago, and many drinks ago, too. Javert turns his eyes to squint at the diminished level of alcohol in his glass. This is unacceptable. He straightens up to call for another drink but stops when the other Javert mutters something.
“What was that?”
“Whatever fever dream I am in right now,” the other Javert says, louder this time, “I do not like it.”
“I am not overly fond of this either, Sidebu – Insp –” Javert stops himself just in time. “Never mind that you are a truly difficult man to be around, there is also the fact of impracticality. There cannot be two Javerts roaming about France.”
“Undoubtedly the Prefecture will not look kindly on having to pay two of us.”
“Indeed,” Javert says glumly, and reaches again to call for his drink.
But a thought occurs to him, a thought so tremendously absurd that – at least to him – it has crossed the border into sense again. It takes a moment to process it, and with each successive wine-soaked minute, it becomes ever more reasonable until it is the most perfectly natural idea he has ever had. He sits back, swigs the last dregs of his drink, and leans forward conspiratorially to his counterpart.
“We might take advantage of this, though.”
Sideburns’ eyebrows rise. “How so.”
“We are the same man. Surely you know what I am talking about.”
“Ah.” The other Javert purses his lips. “Depravity. Self-indulgence.”
“Practicality,” he insists, gazing into the other’s eyes. They are not identical to Javert’s, more blue than his green, but they are quite similar. It occurs to Javert once again that they are absurdly drunk.
Javert forces himself to concentrate. “Come now,” he persists, “it is only logical. Surely you are as frustrated as I am. We are men of the law. We are men of reputation. We cannot risk ourselves going to the little bars where men go to meet. This may be our only chance to be sure an encounter will stay secret.”
The other Javert is as inscrutable as a lynx. Then he stands and slaps a couple of coins on the bar. “I am too drunk, you are making too much sense,” he mutters, then says, loudly, “We will want a room, my – brother and I,” he announces. The innkeeper’s expression does not appear to have changed for the last century.
Even with wine greasing the wheels the awkwardness is not yet eliminated when they get upstairs. Javert, for one, cannot get over the fact that their cocks are the same size (though the shape is somewhat different – he does not know why he is dwelling on it – it is only that the head is somewhat – he does not want to think about it) and it is too damn strange for both of them to take the other’s cock in hand (“It is too similar,” the other Javert says, grimacing, “and all I can think is, I can do this on my own, I do not want to waste this time –”) so it has come down to operating on pure instinct, both of them pushing for what they need.
Somehow it matches up – they have settled on undressing each other as a way of filling time before having to do anything else involving cocks and when the other man undoes Javert’s collar his fingers freeze on the leather underneath – “A neck-stock?” he says. And before Javert can do anything he tugs at the buckle to take it off but the collar tightens against his neck and he makes a sound. The fingers freeze again.
“You liked that,” he says. Javert shuts his eyes. “We are dissimilar in this sense, I suppose – I do not think I would like this very much –” His fingers are already working at the buckle again but this time they tighten the collar and the noise Javert makes is louder, and longer, and more embarrassing. “Hmm,” says the other man. “Well, well – this is very convenient.” The rest of the clothes come off, but the neck-stock stays on, tight and cutting into Javert’s skin.
Fingers hook underneath it, tugging Javert upwards; he follows, rising to his toes. The wild stare the other Javert fixes him with is strangely distracted. He gets the impression the other man is not seeing him, but rather someone else.
His breath comes in short gasps. The other Javert’s eyes focus.
“I will take the lead,” he says. “You seem to like control more than I do.” And Javert cannot lie, cannot deny anything, does not even need to speak – is there any use in denying the truth from a man who is himself?
The other Javert shoves him to the bed. “Stay there,” he announces, and without another word begins to strip.
Javert rises on his elbows, unable to look away. They are likely the same weight but it is carried differently across frames of unlike height and shape; he is squarer, more compact, as compared to the lankier body being exposed before him, and their differences are more evident the more clothes the other Javert removes. So it may be easier, then, to forget this man is, technically, himself – to forget –
He is still too sober for this. He does not think he will ever be drunk enough.
The other Javert comes closer, holding a bundled length of cloth, probably a shirt. “Hands above your head.” He obeys. He is stretched out, exposed, awkwardly arranged on the covers and pillows, and as his hands are bound to the bedstead the sensation of being a pinned insect intensifies. It is not altogether unpleasant. His cock juts out, swollen, and the heartbeat he feels against the tightened neck-stock and the bonds around his wrists pounds there too.
The other man is crouched over Javert by now, straddling his body. A hard hand squeezes his jaw and pushes his head further into the pillow.
“We will say nothing of the fact that we are the same man,” the other Javert pants, staring at him. “This is far too strange.” His fingers press painfully against Javert’s jaw. “It is not myself that I am taking now. That would be ridiculous. No, no, you are –”
He pauses, face agonized.
“You may as well say it,” Javert says quietly. “If we are the same in this regard, at least –”
A ringing slap rattles his teeth.
“Be quiet,” the other man snarls, and shoves his fingers into Javert’s mouth.
He sucks automatically. They taste like nothing, like his own fingers (he kills that thought in the womb) but the way they fill his mouth is different than when he tried to do it himself – he tries shutting his eyes and imagining another body, another shape above him, but in fact the overwhelming strangeness grows even worse when there are no sideburns or longer limbs to distract him. It is better to keep his eyes open, then, but not look too hard at a face that is too familiar; it is a difficult balance but he manages it, the wine making this easier, at least. The man above him is pressing bruises into his chest with his other hand, digging his thumb into the flesh spread tight over his ribs, marking about his nipples with his nails, and each little pain settles a need in Javert, sinks him deeper into a state that is like being drunk and yet totally unlike it. He does not even squirm anymore.
The body above him shuffles forward. “I have wanted to feel a mouth on me for so long,” he hears a ragged voice say. “Open.” He feels a yank on his hair and the fingers in his mouth curl and pull; his lips gape wide, and then the fleshy head of a cock is pushing between them. His lips close around it. He does not think about the size of it, or truly, anything at all – it is just a cock, it is something to be taken, it is something he has wanted to take. The angle is uncomfortable, the neck-stock making it more so. He chokes more than once, but does his best, learning how to guard his teeth and relax his jaw. Judging from how the man thrusts into his mouth with increasing vigor he does tolerably well.
The cock slides out with a pop, and he focuses for a brief moment. “Now – now I am going to fuck you,” the man is panting; his hand is making slick sounds as it moves up and down his length. “Do you have any complaints?”
Javert struggles to speak. “None,” he says. “None, I have wanted this for years –”
“Good.” There are fingers in his mouth again, silencing him. He rolls his tongue over them for a few seconds before they are removed. Then they are pressing at his hole. The man knows him (he does not want to think of why) and the right way to curl his fingers (he is not thinking of why) and he arches his back, almost wrenches his shoulder when he jerks against the bonds. His eyes shut and he moans.
“Silence!” It cuts harsh through the haze of drink and arousal. “Do not ruin this. You sound too much like –” There are footsteps; Javert only opens his eyes in time to see the man return, holding a handkerchief that he stuffs into Javert’s mouth. “Be silent,” he hears him snarl again.
He arranges himself between Javert’s legs and then pushes in, roughly, and moans. It hits his ears and he realizes that their voices, different enough when calm, are unnervingly close when rough with pleasure. The noises that come from him, even muffled by the thing in his mouth, are precisely the same as the ones the other man, the other Javert, makes with each unpracticed thrust. It is disconcerting enough that the images he has been fixing on in his head – dark curls, a prominent nose, thin lips – begin to slip away. No doubt that was why he was gagged. The gag still does not silence him entirely, and the other man notices, and presses a hand atop the neck-stock until he chokes. “Not a sound!” he barks. Javert does his best to obey, and to ignore, in his turn, the sounds coming from above, so that he might better build up the ghost of a different man about the body fucking him.
It occurs to him that they are using each other. This is merely a more convoluted form of quite literally taking oneself in hand. Of course he is being fucked (very thoroughly), they could not have done this alone – but in a strange sense it is as distant as if he were to palm himself off in solitude; his mind is elsewhere, pasting fantasies and daydreams atop the raw sensation of now.
The thrusts are growing more and more erratic, the gasps from above are growing harder to ignore. “Fuck,” he hears him pant, “fuck, I –” The other Javert is tugging at his cock now, rough strokes; at least now he is beyond caring about how the grasp is too familiar.
He swallows to feel the leather tighten against his neck again, lifts his chin a little, and for the first time in a while, their eyes meet.
An understanding passes between them. It is easy enough to read the relief in the other man’s eyes, even as his face twists and he slumps above him, shaking.
“Valjean,” he hears him cry out, “Valjean –”
He suspects they spill at the same time.
“What is yours like?”
Javert blinks at him blearily.
“What?” The taste of the handkerchief is still in his mouth.
“Your Valjean.” The other Javert finishes dressing himself and settles on the side of the bed. Javert is still naked. He is not sure he can move. His shoulders are cramped.
He frowns, trying to collect his thoughts. “Tall,” he says. The other Javert snorts. “I mean it,” he adds. “About as tall as you. And – shaven. Dark hair, cut short, a face like a fox. He has a very peculiar nose and when he smiles there are creases at his eyes and his voice is quite –” He lifts his hands and drops them helplessly to the bed again; they bounce.
“Mine is shorter.” The other Javert gestures in the air. “About yea high. He is graying and has a beard. And his smile, too, is very much, well –” Their shrugs are similar. He notices, and goes quiet.
“We are hopeless fools,” Javert says, after a while. He receives only a smirk in response.
He does not remember the rest of the night. Presumably he puts on his clothes. Possibly he sleeps. Possibly the other one does too, but in the morning, he is gone. He wonders if he ought to worry but some instinct tells him not to bother. However the other Javert got here, he can find his way back. He vaguely recalls something about a library in the story he had been told.
This has undoubtedly been an experience.
His head is pounding but he glances at the window anyway, even as the light seems to sear straight through his eye sockets. The light. It is too bright. If he does not move he will be late. (On the other hand, if he does move, he fears the top of his skull may detach and fall on the floor.)
But he moves anyway, dresses properly, and leaves the inn.